Posts tagged “media radar”

So today, there is much discussion going on concerning the Supreme Court, by a 5-3 vote, striking down a significant part of the recent Arizona immigration law. While the majority of the law was ruled to be in violation or undermining federal law, the part of it that allows police to demand proof of citizenship remained, angering some and bringing great joy to others. I am here to tell you this whole fight is ridiculous, foolish and a real sign of how truly broken our system of government has become and as usual, I will be happy to explain why.

First off, let us all get one thing straight. This country was founded by immigrants. Unless you are of Native American lineage, then you are the descendant of an immigrant if you live in the United States. That being said, all these people out there who are calling for the borders to be completely closed are, at best hypocrites and at worst racists. Every single person who is willing to go through the necessary steps to live here has just as much right to do so as any American so again, unless you are a Native American, you should quiet down unless you feel the country should be closed off to you as well. Nobody stopped your relatives from making the move that allowed you to be born here so shut up already, you sound like a fool.

Secondly, if you are in this country illegally then you are breaking the law, plain and simple. If your parents came here illegally and then had you once they were here, illegally, then you have no one to be angry at other than them, plain and simple. Your parents breaking the law when you were a child does not change the law, nor does it justify you not taking the steps as an adult to abide by said law. If you are a child still and your parents are not taking the legal steps to help you gain citizenship, then your parents should still have the pay the penalty because they are breaking the law!

Thirdly, no one in the government should be surprised that this group of people breaks this law. Do you know why? It is very, very simple. If the government, either state or local, refuses to enforce the penalty for breaking a law then why would the people breaking it stop doing it? Do you really think that if suddenly the state and federal government no longer cared about, or pursued the people committing bank robberies that the number of robberies would go down? Of course not, and if it was publicly known that bank robbing was a crime that would no longer be enforced, as is the situation with it being known fact that pretty much no one enforces being here illegally as a crime, then we would see the bank robberies skyrocket. Why wouldn’t we? You walk into a bank, harm no one and walk out with free money and even when a cop knows you did it, he doesn’t arrest you? Hell, I would almost consider robbing a bank in that scenario.

The reason I make that comparison is this. I spent about five years living in Arizona in my mid-twenties. During my time there I saw protest march after protest march, literally thousands of known felons walking down the street in a parade, walk right past policeman after policeman and I never once saw a cop arrest one of these people as they committed a felony right in front of them. What was even more ironic was the fact that the people protesting their treatment by the government were not citizens!! Is that how the world is now? I can go to Russia and say their government isn’t treating me right when I am a citizen of another country and not theirs?? WHAT???

Now some of your reading this may think I am being harsh or unfair but let me expand on my statements a little more before you judge me fully. The system in this country for gaining citizenship is obviously flawed. If it was not, we would not have this problem. Both sides are to blame. The government is to blame for not pulling their heads out of their asses and fixing what is obviously a broken system and also allowing this problem to fester as long as they have. Not to repeat myself but when it is a known fact for decades that coming here illegally is no big deal, and also why corporations and employers are able to financially profit from it, why would either side worry about fixing it? On the immigrant side, in my opinion, saying that the process is too difficult or too much of a pain in the ass, or takes too long is still no excuse to not even try. If you own a business, there are all sorts of rules that are an annoying and frustrating process to go through, from insurance, to wages, to taxes, to liability but that doesn’t mean a business can just skip doing them. Saying “I do not like a law” is not justification to then just ignore it and if you choose to do so, you should be held accountable.

I believe marijuana should be legal and for much of my younger life, I was a regular smoker. The thing is though is that despite my disagreement with the law, I knew I would be liable for the consequences if I was caught and I accepted the risk. At no time would I walk by a cop smoking a joint because I knew I would be arrested and I do not see how being here illegally, a much more serious felony, does not fall into the same category. Immigrant protests participated in by openly illegal immigrants are a regular thing in this country because the law is not enforced. You will never see a pro-marijuana protest in a major city with thousands of people walking down the street openly smoking pot because police would arrest these people. You can bet if it became common knowledge that they wouldn’t though, people would do it right out in the open.

So as you can see, both sides of this issue are hugely at fault and have a responsibility to meet somewhere in the middle. I propose what I believe is a very simple fix. First off, the government has a responsibility to fix the system, to make it more efficient so that the process doesn’t rob people of the fair opportunity to become citizens. The illegals have a responsibility to begin the process for citizenship, even if they don’t like it because it is the law! I propose that all illegal immigrants be given a window, let’s say six months, to apply for citizenship. If they refuse to even apply after that window, then they should be arrested. I am not talking about the people already in the process but those who have never even tried. Doing so would increase the burden on the system to increase its efficiency in order to handle the sudden influx of all these people who should have applied before. Actually, if you think about it, doing this would likely increase the need for people to work on immigration applications and in doing so CREATE MORE JOBS! This way, we end illegal citizenship, we put the onus on the government to quit screwing around and infighting and actually change the system for the better and we add a positive effect on the economy. If you want this change to have an even further positive effect for everyone, give businesses out there that are employing illegals right now some sort of tax break or tax credit for every employee they assist in gaining citizenship, therefore helping the businesses pay lower taxes, which in turn will help them have more capital to spend in the economy and also to put more people to work. It would be a win for every single person out there, even the police. The police could then spend less time worrying about what seems to me to be a crime fueled by bureaucratic incompetence and more time chasing actual criminals that are hurting innocent, hard-working citizens.

In the end, I support anyone who wants to be an American citizen having the right to but they have to follow the rules. Those who write and enforce the rules have a responsibility to both enforce them and also to make the process not so painful that people will risk jail or deportation to avoid the headache. I hate the DMV like everyone else. It is slow, inefficient, confusing, uncomfortable, a headache every time I go there but it is the law and I need to drive so I deal with it. Immigrants who want to live here need to do the same as far as applying for their citizenship but I do sympathize with their frustration and wish the government would quit being a constant headache and actually start helping the people. I just don’t get why both can’t happen.

Ok, so we are done with Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Nevada so far, and the battle continues to rage on. It has been, at least from my perspective, a fairly entertaining race so far with some moments that are laughable and others that are disturbing. I find it kind of sad that the media sources that are covering these events are showing their usual bias towards certain candidates. What I mean by that is there are four people currently in the race yet it seems the mainstream media has decided that only two of them are worth significant coverage. Yes, I admit that Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have received the most support so far, but Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are still running and you would never know it looking at the coverage thus far. If this is supposed to be an actual race, it would be nice to see the media covering all the candidates, not just the ones they think are going to win or have better soundbites.

We have also seen some monumental missteps in the candidates statements and the usual damage control that follows. Romney made the statement that he “doesn’t care about the very poor, they already have a safety net” and while, to be fair and in context, he also added that if there were holes in said safety net he would fix them, it was still a very poor choice of words. Newt Gingrich has continued to whine and cry about the “negative” ads against him and in my opinion, has looked like a poor loser in doing so. Let’s be honest, this is a guy who spent years in Congress using negative attacks on his opponents but now it’s being done to him so there is something wrong with it? He also made a statement that seemed to fly under the media radar but seemed significant to me. He stated that his opponents were “running negative ads, some true, and they should be ashamed of themselves”. So what he basically said is that some of these ads, often accusing him of just terrible things, politically speaking, are true? Read the quote again, he didn’t say they were unfair because they were false, he basically admitted some of the horrible accusations against him are true. If that is the case, even if it is a small percentage of the ads, then there are some pretty disgusting things about this man that he doesn’t even try to hide.

I also took a few minutes to look over the political pages for Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC this morning and in their usual and predictable fashion, their bias is showing through. Fox’s headline boldly stated Romney’s Nevada victory and also made a point to glaringly mention Gingrich defeated Paul. MSNBC barely had a headline save a small header mentioning Romney won. CNN was kind of in the middle. I just thought it was worth mentioning that Fox continued to try to keep the image of Gingrich, an occasional Fox contributor, as a major player though it is obvious he is way behind, while MSNBC attempted to do their best to downplay the significance of the whole race. Business as usual for these shameful excuses for media sources.

Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, despite their lack of results, continue to not only hang around the race, but also maintain their consistency in message, and also in their amount of the political pie, so to speak. Paul, despite the best, obvious, and really quite childish efforts of the media to ignore him, continues to poll in double digits each primary. I guarantee you this is making the GOP nervous as a whole. With the fervor his supporters campaign for his candidacy he is a serious threat to any of the other Republicans getting elected and they know it, which is exactly why the mainstream “media” sources that support the GOP are doing everything they can to minimize, ignore and discredit him. Sadly, they are too stupid to realize this is helping him!!! The passion Paul’s supporters have is fueled by the unfair and often corrupt actions of not only the media but the establishment in general. The more they try to ignore him, the more energized his supporters become and the GOP better wake up and realize that if he does not win the nomination, which I agree is highly unlikely, then that leaves him out there to run as an Independent. Though it seems he doesn’t want to do so, if he does he will all but guarantee an Obama victory with the damage he will do to any other GOP candidate just by his presence in the race.

Santorum, I believe, is close to dropping out but I believe he deserves credit as clearly the most consistent conservative left in the race, despite the claims of Gingrich and Romney trying to take that title for themselves. He is a little too far to the right for the general public but I do believe that in some cases his conservative views would be of benefit to the country. That being considered though, his anti-gay rights views along with a few other hardcore right-wing issues, puts him in a position where he only relates to the “rightest” of the right….lol.

In conclusion, I thought I would provide my personal odds for each candidate the rest of the way, so go get second mortgages, clean out you bank accounts and head to Vegas because here’s the odds to buy daddy a new pair of shoes!

Mitt Romney-Odds 5-2– The clear favorite. Unless he has a monumental stumble, he is a lock for the nomination, in my opinion.

Ron Paul-Odds 15-1– Paul is going to be a headache to the GOP throughout this entire process, trust me.

Newt Gingrich-Odds-25-1– It may seem like I’m counting him out because, well, I am. Gingrich is a career politician, a proven violator of ethics, a repeated adulterer, and someone who clearly wanted to be Reagan’s friend more than Reagan wanted to be his. He’s not the worst guy ever but politically speaking he has way too many piles for him to step over all of them into the nomination.

Rick Santorum Odds 50-1-Way too connected to the religious right, plain and simple. We live in a country where many public figures are homosexual, and Santorum is so attached to Biblical teachings you would think he’d support slavery if he could get away with it. The Bible says it’s ok right??